Secret AUSTRAC report reveals Government knew of Nauru corruption – what else are they hiding?

MEDIA RELEASE
Wednesday 26 November

The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC) is calling for a Royal Commission into offshore processing following explosive revelations in Parliament late last night that prove the Australian Government has known for years about suspected corruption involving senior Nauruan officials. The report shows they knew of the corruption allegations before signing a new multibillion-dollar deal in secret, using Australian taxpayers’ money.

For more than a decade, offshore detention has inflicted devastating and lasting harm. Children were driven to self-harm and suicide attempts. Women and men were sexually assaulted. People died from preventable medical neglect and suicide. Thousands still carry deep trauma, and many will never recover. Around 100 people remain offshore, reporting food insecurity and deteriorating health, while those recently deported under the NZYQ cohort are held in isolation and secrecy. This cruelty did not happen by accident. It was done in a system built to avoid scrutiny, where secrecy enabled abuse, cover-ups and corruption to flourish.

Last night, Senator David Shoebridge used parliamentary privilege to reveal the existence of a previously secret AUSTRAC information report. The Senator read sections of the report outlining serious suspicious financial activity involving now Nauru’s President David Adeang, former President Lionel Aingimea and other ‘politically exposed persons’, including what it describes as transactions indicative of corruption and money laundering. The suspicious activity was reported to AUSTRAC by the Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Limited’s Nauru agency under reporting obligations.

According to the now public sections of the AUSTRAC report, over a nine-month period in 2020, senior Nauruan officials and their associates moved more than two million dollars through personal and business accounts. This included large payments from the Nauru Government into accounts controlled by the then President’s wife, who then transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to the President himself. The report also identifies rapid movement of “large volume and value of funds” by President Adeang, including credits linked to a company receiving government payments and ATM withdrawals consistent with potential misuse of public money.

According to Senator Shoebridge, these suspicious matter reports were sent to the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Department of Home Affairs, the Office of National Intelligence, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service some time before September 2022.

Despite receiving these warnings, the Albanese Government signed a new two and a half billion dollar deal with the Nauruan Government this year, which a snap Senate inquiry revealed could run to seven billion dollars over the next 30 years. The Government has refused to release the Memorandum of Understanding that underpins the deal, and continues to withhold information about the arrangement from the Australian public.

With a decade of documented human suffering and now clear evidence that Australia proceeded with offshore deals despite corruption warnings, there is only one path forward. The Government must establish a Royal Commission to uncover the full extent of what successive governments knew, how public money has been spent, and the lasting harm inflicted on men, women and children in offshore detention centres.

Ogy Simic, Head of Advocacy at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said:

“It is now becoming clear the Australian Government has very likely known for years about the corruption President Adeang was involved in, yet continued funnelling hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into a system built on cruelty and secrecy. We have to ask – what else are they hiding?”

“Behind every secret deal and every dollar funnelled offshore are real people who have been shattered by this system. Children learned to self-harm and succumbed to resignation syndrome. Children, women and men were sexually assaulted. People died waiting for medical care that never came, or by suicide driven by lethal hopelessness. For so many, the trauma caused by offshore detention will last a lifetime.”

“It is time to put a stop to this – at the ASRC we are watching the same harm, the same deterioration happen to people who are currently offshore. Over 30 remain in Papua New Guinea and around 100 in Nauru. There is still time for the Albanese government to stop history repeating and abandon this cruel policy.”

“Australia’s offshore processing regime cannot be reformed. It must end. If the Government wants to restore trust after such dishonesty to the Australian people, it must open itself to scrutiny. We need a Royal Commission to fully expose what successive governments knew, what they allowed to happen, what they covered up and the human damage they caused.”

For media enquiries or interviews contact:

Natasha Blucher on 0412 034 821 or media@asrc.org.au

BACKGROUND:

Senate Hansard, Tuesday 25 November 2025, Proof Issue, pp. 110 – 112